Adoption of LoRaWAN protocol accelerating for utilities and energy applications in China

FREMONT, Calif. – The LoRa Alliance, the global association of companies backing the open LoRaWAN protocol for Internet of Things (IoT) low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs), today announced that LoRaWAN is increasingly being adopted in China for large deployments in smart energy and utilities applications. With utilities now representing the largest market for LoRaWAN in China, the LoRa Alliance will highlight key examples during China Utility Week, April 15-16, 2019, at the Shanghai International Sourcing Exhibition Center.

The de facto industry standard for LPWAN technology, LoRaWAN is an open-source protocol based on industry collaboration that is currently being deployed to connect millions of end devices worldwide. Its inherent benefits make it an optimal choice for smart metering, smart water and gas monitoring, and related uses. The protocol supports high network uptimes by enabling firmware updates over the air (FUOTA) and offers different, scalable network deployment models to provide freedom of choice for both public and private business networks.

Recent examples of successful LoRaWAN energy and utility implementations include:

• Electricity and water metering and management – leading water meter manufacturers are working with local and regional utilities to boost efficiencies, reduce water loss, optimize operations and speed sustainability efforts while achieving optimal total cost of ownership;
• Streetlight control – utilities are rapidly adding smart capabilities to streetlights, including energy management, environmental monitoring, optimizing safety and energy usage;
• Manhole cover monitoring – to detect alarms for lost or displaced covers to avoid intrusion and its associated risks, while also monitoring temperature, humidity or conditions of the underground environment.
• Oil and gas flow control – a leading global flow-control company serving the oil and gas, water, and chemical industries has a solution for failure mode detection, true root-cause analysis, and determining critical assets’ remaining service life;
• Power management – a global leader in power grid technology, electrification products and automating utilities transport is monitoring high-voltage lines to support continuous grid operation, reducing costs and improving efficiency;

Further strengthening its position in the utilities space, the LoRa Alliance and the DLMS User Association (DLMS UA), a non-profit organization driving utilities and meter manufacturers to develop and support a standard for smart meter data exchange, recently announced a liaison agreement under which the two organizations will define a new Device Language Message Specification (DLMS) communication profile for LoRaWAN. Using DLMS-over-LoRaWAN will allow utilities to achieve network connectivity that supports smart metering use cases across many different IoT applications.